the storage anarchist

2.033: v-max is much more than fast

Hot on the heels of last week's FAST introduction comes today's formal announcement of additional features and hardware for Symmetrix V-Max. Collectively, these enhancements are designed to improve the efficiency, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of V-Max in its rapidly expanding community of customers.

Even as some competitor bloggers struggle to comprehend the architecture of V-Max and/or the differentiated value of Fully Automated Storage Tiering (as opposed to Professional services-Based Management), today I will offer some insights into the other updates for V-Max that started shipping to customers at the end of November '09.

If you're a V-Max customer or prospect, there's a lot more than just FAST in this year's Symmetrix Christmas/Holiday package:

• New Hardware support
• Virtual Provisioning enhancements
• Performance enhancements
• Replication Enhancements
• Security enhancements

Let's take a peek at each of these areas, shall we?
 

2.032: emc information calendar, 2010 edition

With a fresh new design, 365 unique daily entries and the new "add notes" feature, the 2010 EMC Information Calendar is better than ever.

 

Use the new "add notes" feature to keep track of your daily tasks, scheduled events, due dates, shopping lists, and more. Your personal "notes" will appear daily. All your calendar notes are yours alone; they live locally on your machine.

Click on the GET & SHARE button to get started now!

 

technorati tags: emc,information,calendar,where information lives,2010 calendar

2.031: manual or automatic?

My, but hasn't EMC's FAST announcement generated a lot of discussion this week?

I've been very busy out in the land of social media, answering questions on Twitter and clarifying things for a broad range of bloggers – most supportive, others well, not so much.

In the midst of a rather respectful tete-a-tete with Pete Gerr over on his HDS "Ars Indicium" (the art of information) blog, I suddenly had a revelation about what distinguishes Symmetrix vs. the USP-v (et al).

It's the different approaches we each take to addressing customer problems.

Now, to be sure, we actually sell to many of the exact same customers, often competing head-to-head for business. So you'd figure we're both seeing the same requirements from these customers. We each have our own well-established technology and storage platforms, and we both get our drives and components from pretty much the same place. I'll stop short of saying that our software does the same thing, though, because this is where it is that I suddenly realize we really differentiate.

But it's not what you think. No, it's not about Virtual Provisioning vs. Dynamic Provisioning or SRDF vs. TrueCopy.

I think it is really something more fundamental than that: Hitachi Ltd. builds tools that customers can use to solve problems, while EMC provides automation to solve those same problems.

We're automatic, they're manual.

Let me explain what I mean…

2.030: emc fast and the big 5

Proving the critics wrong once again, today EMC has announced the General Availability of FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering).

Perhaps unexpected is the fact that FAST is not only a Symmetrix V-Max feature, it is now available for all of EMC's block, file, and unified storage platforms. We actually told everyone that FAST would be cross-platform back in April 2009 when we announced it, but many seem to have forgotten until today.

Chuck Hollis, Mark Twomey and Gina Minks have collectively provided some pretty comprehensive insights on FAST – and more importantly, the new era of storage that it represents.

• Chuck Hollis: FAST and the Continuing Virtualization of Storage (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• Storagezilla: FAST to the FULLEST
• Gina: EMC FAST – how do IT folks keep up to speed?

Also contributing to the social media buzz about FAST are numerous blogs and press articles covering today's announcement, plus a near-steady stream of Twitter chatter about "EMC FAST."

As for me, I've already discussed FAST in a couple of blog posts and comments since my first coverage on April 14th. Back in September I posted a FAST (Symmetrix v1 version) demo along with some Q&A from a "Tech Talk" I had done. Then in October I reprinted a fairly comprehensive review of why Hitachi's Tiered Storage Manager is anything but FAST, written by a well-respected TBC here at EMC.

So for now, I'll not do another dive into FAST, although I am actively answering questions today on Twitter @storageanarchy. There is plenty of accurate detail already available (just be on the lookout for the inevitable Competitor FUD).

Which reminds me: one thing I find amusing about today's launch is the supporting role that the competition and critics have played in the pre-publicity of today's FAST launch. Over the past several weeks, we've seen FAST critics, FAST wanna-bees and even wanna-be new product announcements, all in an obvious attempt to discredit, overshadow or perhaps even delay today's launch.

Though surely unintentional, all this buzz has pretty much had the opposite effect – if anything, all this activity has created even MORE interest in EMC's FAST offerings, not less. The customer value of centrally automated tiering inarguably will is changing the storage market, and EMC is clearly leading the way…as evidenced by IDC and Gartner's reports on the significant share gains that EMC has earned this year.

So, in the spirit of a recent competitor's Thanksgiving blog, let me say that I'm thankful for the predictable and expected spotlight on FAST that competitors have created for us. You have truly helped to broaden the audience for today's launch, and I sincerely I don't know how to thank you enough.

I hope you have enjoyed the pictures!

technorati tags: FAST,Fully Automated Storage Tieringi,EMC,Symmetrix,V-Max,CLARiiON,Celerra,ILM,Flash Drives,EFD,SSD,SATA,Flash,Fibre Channel,Simplified,Storage Management,Automation,Ease of use,competitive advantage